Dirty Little Headaches
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I’d like to begin today by admitting that I’m no Saint. I have my share of vices as do many of you, I’m quite sure. There are several that I can’t and won’t disclose as this is a somewhat family-friendly format and furthermore, I’m most certainly not going to engage in self-incrimination. One of my more benign vices I blame solely on technology. Occassionally while reading news, doing research or glancing over Facebook updates, my mind, and fingers, begin to wander. A few swipes and clicks in the wrong direction and all of a sudden, I’m cruising through the internet’s red-light district. Oh, shut up. You’ve visited porn sites too at some point. Maybe just before you had to take your pc in for service because of a nasty little virus? Hmmmm? That’s why I use a Mac, praise Steve. Computer viruses aside, have you every been affected physically by a web site? Well, umm, I mean in a negative way. Just suppose you happened to go cruising in the red-light district and every single time you visited one of those notorious sites of ill repute … you got a blinding headache that felt like God’s own guilt hammer was crushing your lust, not to mention your skull. Well, that’s exactly what happens to one young man and here’s his story:
A man plagued by porn-induced headaches has to take painkillers 30 minutes before watching the X-rated movies, according to a case study. a The unnamed “unmarried male software professional,” 24, complained of “severe, exploding” headaches that developed gradually and peaked 10 minutes into the sexy scenes.
“Progressively, he started to refrain from viewing videos as a means of avoiding headaches,” researchers from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in New Delhi, India, wrote in the case study published in the June issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior.
The cause of the man’s ill-timed headaches, triggered only by porn and not by sex or masturbation, is unclear.
“This guy is interesting because he’s just watching porn and not actually having sex,” said Dawn Buse, associate professor of neurology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and director of behavioral medicine at the Montefiore Headache Center in New York. “But he probably still gets aroused and excited, which may be even worse than having sex because there’s no release.”
Buse said about 1 percent of the population — mostly males — get headaches associated with sexual activity. But even arousal can cause changes in muscle tension, nerve sensitivity and blood flow in the brain that boost the perception of pain, she said.
“It makes sense,” she said. “There’s definitely blood pumping through his head and his body.”
Like exercise-induced headaches, sex headaches are nothing more than a nuisance, easily negated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, Buse said. But in rare cases, the pain can signal something more serious, like a brain tumor or an aneurysm.
“If someone has a stiff neck, dizziness or confusion along with the pain, they should talk to a doctor,” Buse said.
The man, ready to abandon his porn-watching ways, was instead advised to take 400 milligrams of ibuprofen and 500 milligrams of acetaminophen 30 minutes in advance, to which, according to the study, “he reported significant pain relief.”
Now, personally I can’t speak to the ladies out there but I think most of the guys are with me on this. Isn’t the whole point of porn to get the blood flowing, develop a little stiffness and have your head explode I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.
Musical credits:
Bother Me Often, Carter Beale
Bothersome Reprise, Carter Beale
